Letter: Schools abuse 7-year-olds who refuse to take tests

Some students that refuse to take the NYS assessments in Math and ELA are being made to “sit and stare” at the inside of a test cubicle that is placed around students during test time. Regardless of where you stand on the Common Core issue, it is a parental right to opt out of NYS assessments.

School districts play semantic games on this and say there is no provision to “opt-out” and technically they are right. Parents opting their children out must say they REFUSE the tests. An executed parental order to the school district is still not enough.

NYSED is making the student disobey a teacher’s command and say “I REFUSE” when they are handed the test. Why are children as young as 7 years old, being made to defy their teachers? Why isn’t the parental direction enough? I teach my children to be respectful towards teachers, not disobey them.

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It gets better on test day. Now that the classroom is mixed with students that are taking the test and those that are refusing, what is to be done with the students that are not taking the exams?

Here’s where school districts on Long Island, and throughout New York and the country, differ tremendously in the treatment of our most precious assets.

Some districts are very understanding and accommodating and remove all the non-test takers from the classroom and bring them to a separate room, such as the library. There, students are expected to read quietly during the test time. Other districts do not remove the non-test takers from the classroom, but they do allow them to read quietly at their desks during the testing period.

Then there are districts like Longwood, East Meadow, Patchogue-Medford and many others that employ a barbaric, medieval type of retaliatory treatment on its non-test takers. They are made to sit silently staring into space for 70 minutes a day, three days in a row. They are made to do this for both math and ELA. This is seven total hours of “sitting and staring.” They are to just sit at their desks doing absolutely nothing. Silently, as to not disturb the test takers. A 7-year-old not being able to move or speak or read for 70 minutes straight?

Conversely, how about the other 7 year old that is struggling with this test and sees his friend doing nothing?

Concerns have been expressed to the boards of education in the districts listed above, only to be ignored. How are schools allowed to have such drastic differences in the way they treat their students faced with the exact same scenario. How can districts be permitted to engage such draconian measures as sit and stare on little children?